- In grade school, we might learn history in class and think of it as a straightforward recitation of facts and dates.

Today's guest, however, explains that history can be a high-stakes conflict shaping the collective memories and national narrative s that can prepare a nation for great trials and even war.

She's Jade McGlynn.

This week on "Story in the Public Square".

(dramatic music) - Hello and welcome to the "Story in the Public Square" where storytelling meets public affairs.

I'm Jim Ludes from the Pell Center at Salve Regina University.

- And I'm G. Wayne Miller, also with Salve's Pell Center.

- And our guest today is Dr. Jade McGlynn, a research fellow in the Department of War Studies at King's College London.

She's also the author of two timely and insightful books, "Memory Makers, the Politics of the Past in Putin's Russia", as well as "Russia's War".

She joins us today from the United Kingdom.

Jade, thank you so much for being with us.

- Thank you so much for inviting me.

- You know, you and I had a chance to talk and the books together and individually are really important and fascinating reads.

I wanna start though, talking about "Memory Makers, the Politics of the Past in Putin's Russia", you know which is an interesting exploration of the way Putin and his regime are using memory and history for their own purposes.

But I'm wondering, to get started if you could explain the difference between those two things, between memory and history.

- I think that's a really important distinction and it's one that sometimes gets lost.

So the difference between memory and history is history is either facts as they happen or at least an attempt to try to work out the facts as they happen.

Whereas memory is the remembrance, either individual, direct or in many of the cases that I look at, more of a cultural or collective memory that's passed down and is recreated and is is very pliable.

So yes, there's some overlap, but we are really talking about quite different topics.

- Is this the stuff of national identity?

- I think so, because every single nation needs a story that it can cohere around and everybody, just every single individual makes sense of the future of their lives, you know, through reference to the past.

That's just a normal way of living your life.

And this role, this idea of belonging to something bigger to having that sense of continuity is increasingly important.

And I think particularly perhaps in a secular age as well, history begins to take on more important elements, more important ways of tying people together and into a story, into that sense of community that perhaps some feel is lost.

- So what is Putin trying to achieve with his appropriation of Russian history and memory?

- So I think there's two elements here.

First of all, everybody's trying to do this in a way.

I mean, I think that there's nothing pathological really about what the Kremlin or what Russia is trying and what has been trying to do with memory.

It's perhaps more a question of the extreme lengths to which it has gone, but are many of the tactics that I describe I think you'll find, you know, pretty much if not in all of them, in most countries of the world.

What makes the Russian case so interesting is a couple of things.

So first of all, it's that there really wasn't a post-Soviet idea of what it means to be Russia, of why Russia belongs, why is Russia, why do Russians belong together?

And there were various sort of efforts to create one that nothing really worked or could work.

And in the end, the focus came to history, firstly because pride over the victory in the Great Patriotic War which is a term Russians used to refer to not so much the Second World War as specifically 1941 to 1945 and the Soviet fight against narcism.

So this pride in that victory was one of the most unifying elements that the country had.

And to be honest you know, when Putin came to power in 2000, there really weren't that many things to unify around.

And so increasingly this sense of a shared historical narrative became I suppose the anchor.

And then of course it also tied into well bluntly, a lack of vision for the future.

And so over time increasingly became so that the future would be what I describe as a sort of sense of nostalgic anticipation.

It will be good because we'll recreate some of the bits that we lost.

- What is the effect, the continuing, the lingering effect of the collapse of the Soviet Union on Russia and Putin more specifically?

- Well, Putin has himself spoken quite a lot about the effect on him.

And you know, there's, there's an awful lot of material and journalism on that point.

I think I'm probably better placed to speak about the effect or the use of the effect.

So the 1990s, sometimes I'm quite surprised because you'll see it's quite common to hear commentators in the west discuss it as, okay well that's when Russia had this sort of experience of democracy and liberalism.

And I think that's a very flawed interpretation of what happened in the 1990s to put it mildly.

You know the transition to democracy never really worked out unless, you know, I mean certainly in my reading of that period and my reading of sort of Yeltsin's high presidentialism and the very flawed election of 1996 and the reason why this matters is because Russians became very, very disillusioned.

There was a lot of hope with the fall of the Soviet Union and Russians became very disillusioned both by capitalism because they experienced an incredibly extreme form of it.

I mean, that's why it was called shock therapy.

And you know, the sudden sort of inequality was very jarring for many.

And also because it led to, you know, incredible poverty with people not being paid, with people being paid in darkins or pickles instead of their actual wages.

It's very humiliating in a sense of a loss of status that was once there, even if perhaps it was only imagined that it was there.

There was that feeling that of loss, of a profound loss.

And one of the elements that the Kremlin or the Stateline media has been incredibly effective at doing is taking that sense of personal humiliation that many people felt understandably, and then mixing it, inflating it with a national humiliation.

This sense that yes, you felt humiliated and the West was responsible for that.

Just as they humiliated us in Yugoslavia in 1999, just as they humiliated us, you know, by getting involved and spreading color revolutions in Georgia, in Kyrgyzstan, in Ukraine in 2004.

And now Putin has finally got Russia back off its knees and we can avenge this humiliation, we can undo them.

And it's incredibly powerful because it's mixed that personal element with a sense of a broader national cause.

- So what was Vladimir Putin do doing during this period, during the 1990s and how has that affected him today in charge of Russia?

- So there's the famous moment that's often cited in any sort of long reads on Vladimir Putin about him being in Dresden and sort of calling for support or advice from Moscow.

And then the sort of famous line Moscow is silent and that sense, he speaks about it a lot.

It does appear to have had an effect on him that the notion of the collapse of the state and something that could be so all powerful.

And to be honest with you it's a very cohering element within Russian society as well.

We've just had the sort of progression rebellion and there we saw in Putin's speeches he referred a lot to this sense of, well the stake could collapse, we could have times of troubles, we could have 1917 the Civil War.

And it seemed an odd line if your whole sort of gambit is about, you know, I'm a very strong leader and I keep Russia secure.

But actually it makes a lot of sense if we then think back to what coheres the elites and the people in Russia.

Well that fear of collapse and that fear of collapse is because Putin himself also, you know, during the 1990s experienced a loss of status, a sense of trying to find his place within the world.

Luckily for Putin and I think unluckily for Russia.

He managed to find his place, which was as a deputy to Anatole Sobchak, who was the first democratically elected mayor of St. Petersburg, newly renamed or newly named back to its old name.

And there he was involved with a number of sort of ventures and schemes that I would encourage anybody who wants to take his complaints about sort of corruption and how he saved Russia from sort of Western exploitation.

I would encourage them to go and explore his business dealings in the 1990s to see whether or not they should take those complaints at face value.

- You know, you mentioned the power and prominence of the Great Patriotic War, the Second World War as we call it here in the Atlantic world in Russian history and in Russian memory today.

But Russian history is rich with moments and you know, particular characters if you will.

Are there other aspects of that story that the current Russian regime favors to tell?

And are there some that it tries to de-emphasize?

- Yes, definitely.

So there's quite a fair bit that it does try to emphasize, although the Great Patriotic War is certainly the focal point.

Other elements that it tries to emphasize is the other sense of sort of racking great power status particularly within the Soviet Union, for example, after the Second World War.

And also, you know, sort of naturally racking sort of achievements, the first man in space, periods of imperial expansion, for example under Catherine the Great, under Peter the Great or Peter the First and all the way going back to sort of Ivan the Terrible, who they sort of every now and again try to rehabilitate in the the honest ways and going back then even to Ivan the third and that then the Ivan the Third is an important character because he justifies his right to sort of take certain lands, for example (indistinct) by claiming that he is the heir.

So he expands sort of what was then Muscovy and he does also using the claim that he is the heir to the dynasty that comes from Kiavan Rus.

And this is an important moment really I suppose in Russia and historiography or an important sort of sense because this is quite central to the notion that Russia is the inheritor of Rus.

And that's something that really has been taught for a very long time, not only in Russia but also in the West.

But actually when we look at it in terms of history rather than in terms of memory, it is quite difficult to make that pace of of continuity and legacy there.

- So you argue that this mythmaking is central to Russia's conception of itself today and also how Putin wants Russians to think about their future.

Can you elaborate a little bit on that?

- So I think that myth making in general is quite central how nations tend to think about themselves.

But ideally there might be a few different competing myths you know, and there would be some pluralism.

One of the issues in Russia is that you don't have this pluralism partly for legal reasons, because alternative views of of history are criminalized in some cases.

For example, when it comes to certain opinions on the Second World War, not even opinions, sometimes their historical facts such as the USSR by the Baltic space.

That's not a position you would want to go around shouting outside the Kremlin.

So that's one aspect of it.

And the other aspect is, is I suppose, how much buy-in there's been from the population.

So often we focus on Putin but really my research has always been interested in that interaction between state and society and the extent to which the state, yes, it co-opts, it creates a sense of demand for some of these things but also it appeals to cultural elements that already existed.

And so I think if we just focus on Putin, on the Kremlin, on the top down element, we are really missing what they appealed to, why these historical myths were needed, what do they answer?

And it doesn't necessarily matter whether or not they're true.

I mean it matters to history and it matters on lots of other levels.

But I suppose from my sort of more sociological work or cultural point of view, what I find fascinating is that people need these myths and they find them consoling.

And I think that there's a need there that will need to be met.

And I don't see in my research and in continuing studies that there's any sort of appetite for a very westernized style of economics or a very westernized style of organizing society and approach to sort of I suppose, the cultural elements of society.

And in a way, Putin has managed to wrap this up as if all of these myths constitute a sort of a rep and exceptional exceptionalism as if Russia is somehow innately almost uniquely in touch with its past, with its traditions.

It's aware of the real history.

And it will help others to stay aware or to get back to their own authentic roots.

The extent to which people really truly believe this.

That's not a question for a researcher because it's impossible to really define, but there's certainly a lot of evidence that people buy into it and act it out.

And at that point, well then it becomes sort of more of a philosophical question of what is belief anyway.

- You know, I wanna ask you about how this translates directly into the Ukraine war but I'm gonna put that aside for just a second and we're gonna come to that in a couple of minutes.

But you mentioned sort of the use of this mythology, but one of the things that they have de-emphasized is a lot of the worst elements of the old Soviet Union and the sins of some of the leaders.

How do they reconcile, how does Putin reconcile that history with the mythology that he's trying to create?

- So if we talk for example about the history of the gulags or if the 1930s and the great terror or if we talk about the sort of tragedies inflicted on Russians, then they aren't entirely ignored, they're more justified.

So yes, the basic narrative if we look through the history textbooks, if we look at sort of what's shown on, I suppose like popular history documentaries on TV, it's, yes it was a shame, like that was a tragedy, it went too far, but ultimately it was needed for industrialization and therefore to win the war.

And now let's talk about the war again.

So it is acknowledged.

They tried to mitigate, they tried to justify it.

And I would point out that this is as opposed to some crimes that Russia has committed against other peoples and nations.

And those tend to be either completely ignored or they are denied, you know, very aggressively.

And sometimes you even feel like you've seen some progress maybe, and it goes back.

So obvious example here is the, the execution by the NKVD of thousands and thousands of Polish officers in the forest of Katyn during, well it was during the Second World War just for the great picture of the court.

And this was acknowledged, there was even some attempts at reconciliation and then recently there's been a trend at the most official and highest levels to start denying it again.

So I'm not sure that they're that bothered about whether or not they come off as credible historians.

I think they're very aware that this myth and to me, one of the most interesting, I suppose, sort of like historical entrepreneurs here is the former Minister of Culture of Vladina Budinski who also is now a presidential aide on questions of memory and is widely rumored to have written Putin's infamous on the historical unity of Ukrainians and Russians essay.

And he said something that always stays in my mind, which is that, you know, sometimes myth is more true than fact and no credible historian you know, would completely dismiss myth.

And the idea is that there is a truth within certain myths that means that it has to be defended.

And even if the truth, if fact gets in the way of that, then the fact is to go, not the myth.

- So how does this myth making translate on the street?

Another way of asking that is he has a domestic audience.

What are they saying or thinking?

And I realize that there are, you know limitations to what we can actually learn but how is it being perceived in Russia?

- So I did a lot of field work with different kind of, I suppose grassroots people who got involved and created their own clubs that were sort of military patriotic or military history clubs to teach, often young people, sometimes just sort of interested parties, about Russian patriotic history.

And very often they didn't see their views as completely aligning with the government's.

They understood that the government was using it, sort of instrumentalizing memory for political purposes, but they found common cause with them and bluntly the government provided funding and money for certain activities.

And so it worked quite well.

So for example, if we're talking about clubs and camps, it's quite often children, I guess a bit like in the US will go to summer camps and if we look at some of the camps that are available in Russia, so there's a very famous one called Stranden Getaway, which is like country of heroes.

And there pupils can go and they can learn how to engage in historical disinformation battles.

They can learn how to reenact, they can learn about specific battles.

And this is a sort of a network of clubs that's across the country.

There's also sort of clubs that are after school clubs.

There's been a massive sort of effort to compete with Hollywood in terms of Russian films.

So there's one society in particular the Russian Military Historical Society and that has really engaged with popular culture.

So between 2013 and 2020, it contributed to over 600 films and TV series on history.

And that normally meant shaping the script.

And that society is headed by Vladina Budinski who we just discussed, the man who likes myths but not fact.

There's another very similar society that also engages with this, I suppose, public facing history.

And that's called the Russian History Society.

And that's headed by Sergey Naryshkin, who is the head of Russia's version of the CIA.

So it's the people who are involved are pretty heavyweight I think is fair to say.

But it really does filter down even into sort of child education into sort of after school clubs and of course into the infrastructure, whether or not that's putting up plaques, fitting up statues or painting murals, which is also quite a popular thing now to paint sort of murals of local war heroes from World War II on the apartment buildings.

- So I guess the term mind control would not really apply here, but myth control might be a proper description of what's happening.

- Yeah, I think so.

I mean it is playing on people's emotions.

It's playing on something that's there ,that's organic you know, there's pride in the great patriot core and then it's making people feel that people are trying to destroy that.

They're trying to take it away or to rubbish it and therefore Russia has to defend its history.

And so it plays on people's fears, plays on what they feel proud of and it plays on that sense of insecurity that they have.

- Jade, you know, I feel like we're just scratching the surface on "Memory Makers" but I wanna turn to your other book, "Russia's War" and ask what's the link here?

How does this mythmaking and this selective application of history frame the war in Ukraine for the Russian people?

- So one of the things that I looked at in "Memory Makers" was what I call historical framing which is sort of a few episodes where sort of Russian media and I looked at around sort of six to eight different pro-Kremlin sources.

Sometimes they're just Kremlin sources, sometimes they're just sort of Kremlin aligned.

And I looked at how they use these really intensive kind of historical analogies and one of the most obvious cases was 2014, which they presented as Russia taking back Crimea and you know defending the Donbas, Donetsk Luhansk regions of Ukraine against resurgent Nazis.

And this was a narrative that was really incredibly detailed, incredibly emotional, and it played on sort of narratives from the Soviet Union that Ukrainians during World War II were Nazi collaborators.

And that that's essentially who had come to power.

And so I found it very odd then when in 2022 people said, oh, where's this Nazi narrative come from and why would Russians believe that?

And you think, well it's been there for eight years it's there in films, if you watch sort of all of the World War II films.

If there's ever a Ukrainian they're often sort of a traitor trying to work with the Nazis or they are a good Ukrainian who essentially just speaks Russian maybe with a slightly funny accent and recognizes that they're not really Ukrainian they're just kind of a little Russian to use the term, the sort of imperial era term.

I think that's really what pushed it is, well two things.

First is that with "Memory Makers", all the time when I was writing it and all the time I was doing the research because of course it formed part of my PhD, I felt like I was avoiding where my research was pointing me in that sense of, okay, so you know, my thesis is that this isn't just propaganda, that people believe this, that there's buy-in and my interviews and my fieldwork are showing that okay, people are actually sort of at least accepting this and it's kind of shaping their worldview.

So then where does that lead, where does that lead?

If we look at these essays, you know, that Putin is writing, surely they would have to act on this.

And I thought, well, okay, probably they will, but it won't be now because the west isn't weak enough and in their view, and you know because of course Ukraine would, would never give in.

They'd need to do some things.

But it turns out really their intelligence on Ukraine was very faulty, and they did happen.

And I think, you know, after the chaos and the horror of the 24th of February, 2022, then I started to see people sort of referring to it as, okay, this is Putin's war and just sooner the Russian know, and it wasn't, then they'll turn against it.

And I knew that that wasn't true and I almost felt like Russia's war was slightly (indistinct) to "Memory Makers" because I understood why that wouldn't be the case.

And it isn't because there's something essentially wrong with Russians.

It's because of the context that came before and the different ways in which people had been sort of co-opted, but also you know, limited by certain opportunities, but also given in sometimes the things that were appealing and all of that within a very repressive atmosphere.

So I felt like it was important to explain it for that reason because it felt like we were just kind of otherwise sort of shunting between (indistinct) of all Russians support the war because they're innately always been evil and imperialistic or no, no Russians support the war.

This all just Putin and once he's gone it will all go away.

And both views are gonna make for a pretty bad policy.

- Well, you know, Jade, the two books themselves are an outstanding contribution to our understanding.

The one is "Memory Makers", the other is "Russia's War" and we can't recommend them enough.

Thank you so much for being with us.

She's Jade McGlynn.

That's all the time we have this week.

But if you wanna know more about "Story in the Public Square" you can find us on social media or visit pellcenter.org where you can always catch up on previous episodes.

For G. Wayne Miller, I'm Jim Ludes, ask you to join us again next time for more "Story in the Public Square".

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